My good friend Rob Nunn had invited me to come and fish Holbrook mill pond again, which was great news as I loved this place and wished I had fished it more when I lived here.

                                     MY SWIM

Rob gave me the choice of the swim as I was the guest, which was very nice of him and I opted for the big bay swim as before.

Rod-1 was placed to the right of a fallen tree, in the right hand side of the bay where we had seen fish moving up and down.  My set up is a 1oz pear lead, (as the fish are not happy about leads landing in the water) helicopter style placed in a small PVA bag with some pellet/ground-bait and broken boilies with a single 16mm Gulp Baits Tuna and spice boilie hook bait  This was all placed in Rob’s bait boat with some Chilly hemp/pellet and a mix of 12/16mm T&S boilies.

Rod-2 was placed in the middle, amongst the new growth of the Lilly pads, I must stress that I was using 16lb line and a lead setup that would drop the lead on the take so no harm would come to the carp.  The Lilly growth was not that great and I would not advocate fishing in Lilly pads all year round. This was also sent out in the bait boat with a good mix of the hemp & pellet mix with added boilies.

Rod-3 was put on the edge of the bay with an over hanging tree, in a nice deep hole.  This was also a light lead set up.  As I may need to recast in the night without the aid of the boat, as I did not wish to wake Rob up all the time.  This was all sent out in the boat with the same mix as before.

Once all done, I took note of the horizon markers, placed some tape on the line, all set for the night.

                                VIEW OF THE LAKE

First Day And Night

With the wind still blowing from the east and rain in the night, it was not looking good. I did see a large fish top near one of my rods at first light and later on in the day, but as evening got closer and with that easterly wind still going strong, we still had not had any fish yet.

I re-baited all three rod’s on the same spots, as there was no reason to change them.  The only thing I did different was to grind up all the boilies and pellet/hemp with a Korda bait crusher, that I had found in Rob’s bivvy, great bit of kit, that I will be getting next time I am in a tackle shop.

Second Day and Night

I awoke to the sound of my bite alarm at around 02.00 and I pulled into the fish to feel a small knock and it was gone (at last feeding carp!).  I re-cast the rod, as best as I could, as the take had come from an overhanging bush.  Back to bed, then I woke to a single beep at around 07.00 (time to put the kettle on) and at 07.45, the middle rod bust into life and after a quick battle, the fish was safely in the net, a nice 16lb common.

                                               A NICE COMMON
The morning pasted with no sign of Mr Carp, it was not until 15.30 when I got my next take from the right side of the big over hanging willow tree.

This turned out to be a nice 15lb10oz ghost carp.  Things were starting to look good especially as the wind has change to the south.

Third night and day
The night past with not a take between us, which was very odd.  With no joy by 10.00, I re-baited all rod’s and as I was putting the second rod out, a couple of fish topped behind the tree.  Hopefully this was a good sign. At 16.30, I finally got a take of the right hand side of the tree, only to have a hook pull half way across the lake (great one).

Forth and last night
At 20.00 I had a small common of the right hand side of the tree.  And again at 22.30 I had a 15ib.10oz ghost carp (looked a bit familiar to me!), from under the tree stump on the far margin.  Unfortunately, as I am unable to cast that back out to that spot, due to not wanting to wake Rob up.  I had been baiting another area, it was along the margin by the gap as a back up spot,  which it where I will put this rod out now.

                                             A NICE GHOST CARP
I had set the alarm clock for 06.00 to make the most of the last morning, before it was time to pack up at 09.00 as I had a 4 hour drive back home.  I wanted to spend some time with the family before it was back to work tomorrow.  I was up before the alarm, as I was getting liners on the right and left rods by the tree.  Let’s hope there is time for another fish, that would be nice.

Well it,s 10.00 and with no more fish it’s time to head home to see the family.

that’s all for now

Richard